A Breakthrough in Absolute Barometry

Kevin F Scott, Meteormetrics Limited, Kirklands, Craigend Road, Stow,

Galashiels TD1 2RJ UK.
+441312080402 kevin.scott@meteormetrics.com

Abstract
This paper describes a new, patented, Low-Mercury and Zero-Mercury Absolute Barometer. This instrument
is designed to replace traditional Fortin & Kew barometers everywhere, drastically reducing the Mercury
content or eliminating it altogether, and bringing a new order of precision and accuracy to this well proven
barometric principle. In the new instrument, there is still a barometer tube but it is only about 50 mm long
overall and a millimetre in diameter. It is rotated on a disk, the same size as a CD, and is equipped with
sensors to detect the meniscus to micron precision and the atmospheric pressure is displayed digitally on the
disk as it rotates. The result is a compact, absolute instrument, very easy to read, accurate and highly stable.
European and US patents have been applied for. Patent Application No EP11162336.9, and US Patent
Application Serial No 13/085,747.

Introduction
The entirely new absolute barometer described here has all the great advantages of the Fortin and Kew
barometers without the disadvantages. Like the traditional Fortin instrument, the instrument is an absolute
barometer, yielding the atmospheric pressure from mass, length and time measurements only. In practice, as
in its predecessors, this amounts to some dimensional measurements, a knowledge of the density of a fluid
and a knowledge of the acceleration to which the instrument is subject. There is no zero setting, no
adjustments to make, no calibration required. As in the Fortin barometer there is a temperature coefficient
which can be calculated. This new Absolute Barometer shares with the Fortin another great advantage over
semiconductor sensors: it is transparent to the user: The user can see the meniscus and verify that
measurements are correct. Many scientists, meteorologists and technicians value this feature of transparency
in instruments enormously.

The instrument described here, is, however, physically much smaller than the Fortin instrument, being,
typically, about 130mm x130 mm x 90mm overall, compared with a traditional barometer which is over a
metre long. Moreover, it need contain no mercury, and even if mercury is used in it, only 500 milligrams of
the metal is used compared to the usual payload of the Fortin Barometer of about 1.5kg.

The single greatest disadvantage of the Fortin Barometer - that of uncertainty of the condition of its
Torricellian vacuum, during the course of time - is completely overcome in the new instrument. In the
course of its normal operation, this Absolute Barometer can determine the residual pressure, if any, in its
Torricellian vacuum and can accurately compensate for any inadequacy therein.

The new Absolute Barometer has a tiny barometer tube, but this is mounted on the surface of a rotating disk.
(figure 1) The stem of this barometer tube is fitted with an optical meniscus detector or a series of such
detectors located at measured distances down the tube. When the disk is rotated, the barometric fluid suffers
an increase in acceleration which, if the disk be rotated with sufficient speed, results in the fluid meniscus
leaving the top of the closed limb of the barometer tube and moving progressively outwards to pass the
meniscus detector(s). If the rotational speed is now reduced, the meniscus moves inwards once again until it
reaches the closed end once more. By repeating this cycle continually, and recording the rotational speed at
which the fixed meniscus detecting points are crossed, a simple hydrostatic calculation performed by a
 Figure 1 Essential features of the Absolute Barometer

microcontroller on the disk, yields the value of the atmospheric

pressure.
A row of light emitting diodes disposed radially on the disk are used
to display the current pressure, thus improving greatly on the
readability of the Absolute Barometer over the traditional
instruments. Finally, so that the user can observe the position of the
meniscus, the top surface of the disk is illuminated with light
synchronised with the disk rotation speed. It thus appears stationary
so that the meniscus may be observed.

Theory
If the atmospheric pressure is Pa , and the density of the barometric
fluid is ρ, the acceleration to which a Fortin Barometer is subject is Figure 2 Dimensions for a Single Detector Disk
g, and the height of the fluid column is h, we can write

Whence, if the disk of the Absolute Barometer under consideration is rotating at an angular velocity of ω and
the dimensions are taken as depicted in figure 2, then we can write:

(1)

If the angular velocity is expressed as S in rotations/sec, equation (1) becomes

(1a)
If the value of S is determined by the operation of the barometer at the point when the fluid meniscus crosses
the meniscus detector (M in figure 1), and the values of the distances h0 and h1 have been measured, the
atmospheric pressure Pa , can be determined.

A correction for the compressibility of the air in the open limb of the barometer tube.

In the Absolute Barometer described, the open limb of the barometer tube extends to the centre of rotation.
This is to obviate Bernoulli effects modifying the pressure in the open limb arising from air velocity across
it. However, the air in the open limb is subject to considerably greater acceleration than standard gravity.
This results in a slight but calculable pressure difference along the length of the open tube.

The variation of atmospheric pressure due to height above sea level is given by:

Where Pa’ is the pressure at height l, Pa is the Pressure at l = 0, M is the average molecular mass of
atmospheric gases, R is the universal gas constant and T is the absolute temperature.
Substituting the rotational acceleration for g, we obtain
Rotational Pressure
Speed RPM Correction
(2) 1000 -0.2mB
2000 -0.7mB
Applying equation (2), the magnitudes of the pressures needed to 3000 -1.6mB
be added to the measured pressure for several different rotational
speeds are given in Table 1. 4000 -2.8mB

Table 1 Pressure correction due to

compression in open limb

Correction for variations due to temperature

As in the Fortin Barometer, the variation of the reading with temperature is due to linear and cubical
expansion coefficients of the barometer components. Two expansivities need to be considered: (i) the linear
coefficient of thermal expansion of the disk along its radius, and (ii) the cubical expansion coefficient of the
barometric fluid. In the prototype instrument, the disk material was fibreglass printed circuit board sheet
with a specified linear expansion coefficient of 1.5 x10-5 deg C-1. This was applied to h1 in figure 2 to give a
value of h10(1+T.1.5 x10-5) where h10 is the value of h1 at 0 C and T is the temperature in degrees C. The
volume expansivity of the barometric fluid gave rise to two necessary corrections. The first, as in the Fortin
instrument, is the correction for the density of the fluid, ρ, which is replaced by ρ0(1-βT) where β is the
volume expansion coefficient of the fluid and ρ0 is the fluid density at 0 C. The second correction is for the
increase in the fluid plug length in the barometer tube arising from its thermal expansion. This decreases the
value of h0, by a factor dependent upon the diameter of the barometer tube. In the prototype instrument
described here this coefficient amounted to -1.9833 x10-4 deg C-1.

From these values, a theoretical thermal coefficient was

calculated for the prototype instrument using mercury
as the barometer fluid, of 0.908 mB deg C-1. This
compared well with the measured coefficient of an
uncorrected prototype of 0.907 mB deg C-1.

The use of multiple meniscus detectors to

enhance precision.

The use of multiple meniscus detectors provides a

number of advantages to the Absolute Barometer. First,
it allows a greater precision in measurement per cycle
of meniscus travel.

Noting that, because the length of the fluid in the

barometer tube is a constant, say, x, we can write
equation 1a as

Figure 3 Using multiple meniscus detectors

By recording the speed of rotation for each meniscus crossing, the processor can perform a least-squares
regression of a plot of the square of the rotation speed against 1/(x-2h) and obtain a gradient of Pa/2ρxπ2,
from which the best estimate of Pa can readily be calculated.

The use of multiple meniscus detectors can also yield another valuable asset. Since the bore of the barometer
tube is known, the volume of the Torricellian space can be calculated for each value of h. If the Torricellian
vacuum is degraded for some reason, and a residual number of moles of air, n, remain in the Torricellian
space, in each case that residual gas will exert a pressure of p, given by

Where a is the cross-sectional area of the barometer tube. If there is a residual pressure, the value of Pa in
equation (1a) will be modified thus

(3)

With multiple values of S and h available to the processor, it will be possible to solve for the best value of Pa
and n, which will give a corrected value for the atmospheric pressure and a quantitative estimate of the
condition of the Torricellian vacuum.

Surface Tension Effects

Liquids rise in capillary tubes or are depressed according to the sign and magnitude of the surface tension
between them and the glass surface of the capillary. If T is the surface tension, g is acceleration due to
gravity, r is diameter of the capillary, d is the elevation of the surface and ρ is the density of the fluid, then

Because the exact value of T depends upon the state of cleanliness of the glass and the purity of the fluid,
narrow bore barometers have not been possible because of the uncertainty in the precise correction to be
applied. However, in the case of the rotating Absolute Barometer, the value of the acceleration is at least 100
times higher than that of gravity and so the effect of surface tension is reduced by the same factor. This
means that, while a Fortin Barometer must have a bore of not less than 6mm, in the case of the rotating
instrument, this can be set 100 times lower for the same precision. The bore could thus be reduced to some
60 microns without surface tension effects becoming significant.

Choice of Barometric Fluid

The main requirement of the barometric fluid is low vapour pressure and there are many non-toxic long
chain hydrocarbons which will suit this application. Experiments were carried out with Aeroshell 3, aviation
lubricant with good results. The pertinent difference between mercury and organic fluids is not in the case of
the rotating instrument, the density, but rather the solubility of permanent gases which is rather high in the
case of non-polar hydrocarbons. They can be satisfactorily degassed using a vacuum prior to use, and
because the diffusion of dissolved gases in hydrocarbons can be very slow, the regassing of the fluids takes
place only slowly. None-the-less, the degrading of the Torricellian vacuum does take place with time. Using
multiple meniscus sensors as detailed above, can eliminate the otherwise adverse effects of this, and give the
instrument a long working life despite it.

Absolute Barometer Design

To transform the theory of this simple Absolute Barometer into a working instrument, the design was
resolved into two microprocessor controlled parts: a base unit with a speed controlled motor and a disk with
an on-board processor to calculate and display the atmospheric pressure. The base unit was fitted with a
magnet which aligned with a Hall-Effect magnetic sensor on the periphery of the disk. This allowed the
disk-borne processor to measure accurately the rotational speed of the disk. Similarly, the disk was fitted
with a small magnet, with a corresponding sensor attached to the base unit, so that the base processor would
also have the rotational speed of the disk available to it.

The base unit processor was programmed to cycle the motor speed linearly between set limits which caused
the meniscus to traverse repeatedly a path crossing the meniscus detector. A crossing of the meniscus
detector was registered by continually calculating the derivative of the photo-transistor collector current and
recording a maximum of this gradient as the meniscus performed its repeated cyclical movement. Each
cycle generated two gradient maxima with their corresponding rotational speeds. These values were used to
calculate the atmospheric pressure.

The Meniscus Detector

Figure 4 shows the general arrangement. The borosilicate

barometer tube T was mounted on an ABS plinth R, on the
disk substrate P and arranged to pass between two 0805
surface mount components: an infra-red light emitting
diode ( IR880 High Intensity Series 170 from OSA Opto
Light GmbH) S, and an infra-red sensitive NPN
phototransistor (Type OP501 from TT Electronics) N.
These two components were soldered to the printed circuit
Figure 4 Meniscus Detector
board such that their radiating or detecting elements were directed along lines normal to the surface. The
emission from the LED and the detection of the phototransistor were constrained within a 50 micron wide
slit printed on the underside of the acrylic prism Q, which, with a slot machined across its hypotenuse,
provided the optical path L from the LED, through the tube and thence to the phototransistor.

Balancing the Disk

In the design of the Absolute Barometer disk, the masses and positions of the components attached to the
disk were taken into account to produce an accurately balanced disk for minimum vibration on rotation. It
was, however, found that some small adjustment was necessary to provide smooth operation at high speeds.
The device used to balance the disk took the form of a mounted motor fitted with an optical tachometer
which provided an electrical pulse at a specific rotational position of the shaft. The vibration caused by the
out of balance mass on the rotating sub-assembly was detected and measured by a single axis solid-state
accelerometer, type MMA2301. This was mounted on the motor substrate at the same angular position as the
motor tachometer null. The signal from the tachometer and the signal from the accelerometer were fed to
two channels of an oscilloscope. When the disk was rotated the oscilloscope trace gave both the angular
displacement between the tachometer null and the out-of-balance maximum, but also the magnitude of the
necessary corrective moment that needed to be applied. The disk could be easily balanced in this way by
cementing the appropriate small mass of acrylic to the periphery of the disk.

Displaying the Pressure Reading

The rotation of the disk can be conveniently exploited to provide a digital display of the determined pressure.
A series of 8 light emitting diodes L in figure 1, mounted radially and illuminated by the microcontroller
according to the desired digits to be displayed provided a highly visible indication of the measured pressure.

Performance
The performance of the Absolute Barometer was
investigated by enclosing the entire instrument
in a sealed transparent box rated to IP67 which
then could be pressurised in the range of 950
mB to 1050 mB. The pressure was
independently measured using a Meteormetrics
Meteor2000CBV2 calibrator with a calibration
traceable to a UK National Physical Laboratory
Standard.

At a constant temperature of 40 C, The

calibration graph obtained across the range is
shown in figure 4. The slope of the graph of
0.9996 mB/mB demonstrates that the new
Absolute Barometer will perform at least as well
as the Fortin barometers it is designed to replace.

The results reported here are confined to an

Absolute Barometer with a single meniscus
detector and the minimum of data post-
processing. With this minimum in place, the
standard deviation on a set of readings of a
single pressure was 0.6mB. With multiple
Figure 5 Calibration Graph for the Absolute Barometer
meniscus detection and least-squares treatment of each data set, it is not unreasonable to expect a 5 – 10 fold
improvement on this figure, which would place this Absolute Barometer in an unchallenged position with
respect to both traditional absolute instruments and secondary devices.

Patent Protection
European and US patents have been applied for. Patent Application No EP11162336.9, and US Patent
Application Serial No 13/085,747.